I will try to be as brief as possible. The setup: my brother and his wife pay me to dogsit their dog when they are away from home. He has paid me 500 dollars for watching his dog for 10 days in the past. I expected to make at least 1000 dollars for watching the dog for 3 weeks this Christmas, but when asked about payment, my brother would ignore it, or be vague. I chose to trust that I would be payed fairly. However, I was staying at his house and he allowed me to use his car and I accidentally scraped the bumper up pretty badly. Other than that, the 3 weeks went by smoothly. The dog was well taken care of and I respected their home. When he paid me at the end I received 500 dollars. I was upset, but figured it was because of the car. However, when I messaged him a few days later, telling him that I at least would like to receive some communication about my payment or even why he didn’t pay me as much as I felt like I deserved. He did not respond to the message and has communicated with me at all in 2 months. We are normally very close. I have the impression he thinks I am ungrateful. Am I the asshole?
NTA. In the future, for any job (fam or not), ask specifically what the pay is. That could have very easily solved this.
So I forgot to include, because of the word count limit, but I asked multiple times. First he just ignored me, but when I was persistent, he told me something along the lines of “You will get taken care of properly”
But you were taken care of properly. You normally get paid $500 for 10 days and you did twice as long as that. The car damage you did would’ve had at least a $500 deductible. In addition, it probably raised the price of his insurance. He paid you more than fairly and you should’ve offered immediately to have the damage taken out of your pay
Did you apologise for scraping his car? Or offer to compensate? Because it says nada about that and that’s a pretty big expense.
Or did you look after the dog, scrape his personal vehicle without offering compensation, not apologise, then ask why you weren’t given more money?
Edit to add – at the moment, YTA
No le comunicaste tus expectativas a tu hermano. Tuvieron que acordar el pago desde un principio.
Info:
Do you normally live at home with your parents and are cared for there, so that looking after the dog means you have higher costs than usual, for example for groceries?
Yes, that is correct. When he previously paid me 500 for 10 days, about 150 I spent on groceries when I was there. I believe since he left a few things in the freezer for me and he and his wife made me a gift basket, they may have also removed some of the cost of those things from my payment as well. However, I still spent around 150 for food and spent money I thought I could afford to because I expected more.
You could and should have talked about everything beforehand. Communication is key in this situation. You had your expectations, and your brother had others. Go there, sort out your thoughts, and talk.
NAH.
I didn’t explain fully in the post, but I did let him know that I thought we should have properly talked about the money beforehand. That is the message that he has refused to acknowledge and has caused him not to communicate with me at all since. It’s his turn to communicate lol
I don’t mean to be rude, but you do want something from him, don’t you?
It seems the money issue is currently resolved for your brother.
YTA
Why?
YTA. You know why you weren’t paid as much, why are you trying to start shit?